How Candy Dropped From the Sky Changed World History

[Bloggingheads]

[bjkeefe]

Just started watching, and I don't know how much longer I'll last. Thoughts on the opening segment:

The idea of a speechwriter who worked for George W. Bush saying Barack Obama can't give a speech kills irony dead, digs it up, and kills it again.

And now he's here to tell us that he didn't like the Philadelphia race speech? Again? Wow. Compared to this, Mickey on immigration is fresh.

Frum has become such a blatant hack that he's not worth listening to anymore. He used to present some ideas that were worth listening to but now he's just preaching to a very small choir. I'm sure there will be a few here who will be delighted by his words and will pile on, but really, he has no hope of getting anyone but the hardcore rightwingers to listen to him.

[bjkeefe]

PS: For your information, Mr. Frum, current count for views on the Philadelphia speech: not "tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands." Latest count: 4,508,293. On that one page alone.

As I understand it, YouTube only counts a view if the video is watched end to end.

[fedorovingtonboop]

dave - why are you such a con robot? read the evidence then make up your mind.

[Sgt Schultz]

Obama's race speech is now "inoperative" -- haha!

[pod2]

Sorry, what, exactly are we to conclude from the European countries' refusal to provide troops to an occupation of Iraq?

What would it mean to spend more money on education and infrastructure than military expenditures? Has Frum visited France lately? Has he driven around the country, taken trains, seen the state of the infrastructure? Spending half of the discretionary budget on maintaining what Washington warned were standing armies and what Eisenhower warned was the Military industrial complex does not make us stronger in the 21st century. The refusal to provide troops in Iraq is a fairly ridiculous and contraindicative measure for Frum to use. Sending troops overseas as the sole measure of national strength and/or health seems so first century.

Sure liked to hear someone from the left say this!!!

And OF COURSE its because of the media age...or should I say the NEGATIVE LEFT WING media age. We get months and months of coverage followed by months more of left wing talking points about a handfull of soldiers at ABU GRAIB. We get months and months of coverage including Murtha slandering a handful of Marines about Haditha based on a BS Time Magazine speculation...and when they are pretty much all cleared of all charges, we get almost nothing!!!

But yet on a daily basis thousands of our soldiers ARE winning the hearts and minds of thousands of Iraqi's and unless you dig really hard you hear nothing of it because the MSM and the International media is too consumed with BDS, blame America first or anti-americanism that they cannot bear the thought of anything good going on in Iraq...so they dwell on anything gutteral as they try to head off any positive notions and positive progress.

[pod2]

Originally Posted by Whatfur

Sure liked to hear someone from the left say this!!!

And OF COURSE its because of the media age...or should I say the NEGATIVE LEFT WING media age. We get months and months of coverage followed by months more of left wing talking points about a handfull of soldiers at ABU GRAIB. We get months and months of coverage including Murtha slandering a handful of Marines about Haditha based on a BS Time Magazine speculation...and when they are pretty much all cleared of all charges, we get almost nothing!!!

But yet on a daily basis thousands of our soldiers ARE winning the hearts and minds of thousands of Iraqi's and unless you dig really hard you hear nothing of it because the MSM and the International media is too consumed with BDS, blame America first or anti-americanism that they cannot bear the thought of anything good going on in Iraq...so they dwell on anything gutteral as they try to head off any positive notions and positive progress.

I hate to break it to you, but when you are an occupying force, the local populations seem to inconveniently focus on the cases of indiscriminate rape, murder, and torture. I'm sure that there were plenty of Soviet soldiers that were trying to win over the populations of Afghanistan in 1975 or in Prague 1965 or Chechnya 1999. It's just that torture, massive civilian casualties tend towards inconvenient sentiment on the part of local populations. Ask a Tibetan if you doubt this.

Originally Posted by pod2

I hate to break it to you, but when you are an occupying force, the local populations seem to inconveniently focus on the cases of indiscriminate rape, murder, and torture. I'm sure that there were plenty of Soviet soldiers that were trying to win over the populations of Afghanistan in 1975 or in Prague 1965 or Chechnya 1999. It's just that torture, massive civilian casualties tend towards inconvenient sentiment on the part of local populations. Ask a Tibetan if you doubt this.

Talking about Iraq here Pod. Deflection does not work here.
I suggest you read Yon's book. This force in Iraq is operating under a microscope. YOUR microscope. You actually have nothing to teach me.

[bjkeefe]

Originally Posted by Whatfur

You actually have nothing to teach me.

In other words, you are unwilling to learn.

I'd save your breath (carpal tendons), pod2. There's no getting someone like Whatfur ever to admit anything bad about the military, just as there's no getting him to admit that the entire left does not, in fact, hate the troops. Not even this guy, if you read carefully enough. (This guy may, slightly.)

Whatfur is permanently stuck in a "with us or against us" mindset. He has no gray areas. Just watch how he responds to this.

[fedorovingtonboop]

"...But yet on a daily basis thousands of our soldiers ARE winning the hearts and minds of thousands of Iraqi's and unless you dig really hard you hear nothing of it because the MSM and the International media is too consumed with BDS, blame America first or anti-americanism that they cannot bear the thought of anything good going on in Iraq...so they dwell on anything gutteral as they try to head off any positive notions and positive progress.[/QUOTE]

this is so funny to me , it sounds like you copy and pasted a michelle malkin blog post! even the MSM bogeyman is in there. sorry man, but i seriously had to to back and check to make sure you weren't joking because this is an excellent fox news/lgf talking points summary for the last five years. if only the MSM would give Iraq a fair shake everything would work out, right??
we know the soldiers are trying to do the right thing. it doesn't matter. as long as we are on their land, they're gonna continue blowing up our soldiers. we will never ever "win them over." Britain literally already did this in the same country a hundred years ago and got the same result.
if Europe invaded the US to help "overthrow" our staunch capitalists for their (in ways) superior and more socialist system would the MI militia ever be ok with their presence. no, they wouldn't. never
it's perfectly fine to disagree with the majority but you have to do it as a free thinker. and as a formerly (partially) con person i can tell you're not being independent, letting go of the way you want things to be be and thinking for yourself. just let it go, dude, iraq was a disaster....even most cons agree. we know there's lots of good stuff happening but it's neither here nor there because it's a freakin' disaster.

Originally Posted by bjkeefe

In other words, you are unwilling to learn.

I'd save your breath (carpal tendons), pod2. There's no getting someone like Whatfur ever to admit anything bad about the military, just as there's no getting him to admit that the entire left does not, in fact, hate the troops. Not even this guy, if you read carefully enough. (This guy may, slightly.)

Whatfur is permanently stuck in a "with us or against us" mindset. He has no gray areas. Just watch how he responds to this.

Not about not willing to learn...pod2s examples seemed to dwell on occupations by communist regimes (there's a shock), and their similarities to what we are trying to do in Iraq are miniscule.

Not about hating the troops either...that's pretty silly Brendan as are your links. Nice try though...you are a pretty good example of the problem yourself.

Listen to my link again and then go read Yon's book...and take something for that BDS.

Why is it you all make arguments that have nothing to do with the point? Maybe I should have left out the hearts and minds comment. But if you have not read any stories of our winning over some Iraqi's then I can only suggest you "occupy" your mind with a couple.

So you disagree with Mr. Cherny that the Media has pounded on things like Abu Graib, or shooting up a Koran while ignoring the thousands of positive stories of "kindness" and heroism our troops have shown and are showing? Or if you agree then, why do you think this misleading use of the media is true? What kind of affect on American opinion, world opinion, and the opinion of Iraqi's themselves has this had? Do you deny the this pounding coupled with the negativism of Democrat leaders has not empowered the enemy, frustrated the troops and confused Iraqi's who actually want to believe that they can have and live in a country free of fear?

And if you have the ability to get your minds around these questions then ask yourself where we might be if instead of being painted as occupiers making human pyrmids of naked Iraqi's we were painted as liberators and Democratic enablers? To head you off at the pass...Do not get hung up on the denial here of whether we are liberators or enablers... but I am just looking to see if you think that if all our leaders and the media pounded on the positives instead of the negatives whether that would have made any difference.

[piscivorous]

Of course then there is always Andrew Sullivan's take on the issue Obama And Iraq

[JIM3CH]

I have always had respect for David Frum for stepping into the fray at Bhtv with his wildly conservative views. As a Bush apologist, however, he is now really groping for straws don’t you think?

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/115...1&out=00:42:34

[Incompetence Dodger]

Originally Posted by JIM3CH

I have always had respect for David Frum for stepping into the fray at Bhtv with his wildly conservative views. As a Bush apologist, however, he is now really groping for straws don’t you think?

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/115...1&out=00:42:34

Yes, you do have to give David Frum credit for being willing to play "away games" (I'm not thinking of bhTV so much as, say, Bill Maher's show). Also for assiduously not attempting to use volume, bluster, or sheer repetition of talking points as a substitute for persuasion. That said, what he said 30 seconds before the bit you linked to is what really floored me. Thank heavens there were at least a few people like David Frum in the White House in 2001-2003 giving this sort of wise counsel to the President (substituting "Saddam Hussein" for "Hugo Chavez," of course, and with Scott McClellan offering similarly sage advice on domestic affairs). What's that you say? That's not what they were saying back then? They were, in fact, saying essentially the exact opposite?

Oh.

Well, better late than never. But only infinitesimally better.

[Thus Spoke Elvis]

Originally Posted by bjkeefe

Just started watching, and I don't know how much longer I'll last. Thoughts on the opening segment:

The idea of a speechwriter who worked for George W. Bush saying Barack Obama can't give a speech kills irony dead, digs it up, and kills it again.

I disagree.

This conflates the speech writer with the speech deliverer. They are usually two different people. If you just read the text of their most significant speeches, you could make the case that W. Bush's speeches were better than those of Bill Clinton. But Clinton's delivery of mediocre text was usually superior to Bush's delivery of a well-written speech.

Even if you want to make the case that the delivery of a speech is an important consideration when determining whether it's well-written, I'd still make the case that many of Bush's speeches have been quite good -- at least so long as your assessment is based on their effectiveness. Think about Bush's address to Congress after 9/11, or his 2004 address at the Republican National Convention -- those speeches had an enormous impact upon their audience. Bush's speech to Congress (which Frum had a hand in writing, btw) instilled confidence in both Republicans and Democrats that Bush was capable of responding to the attack on America -- a view that was much less widely held on 9/11 and 9/12. I would make the case that Bush's 2004 RNC speech won him the presidential election, as it raised his poll standings over Kerry to the point where he could afford to do poorly in their subsequent debates.

And now he's here to tell us that he didn't like the Philadelphia race speech? Again? Wow. Compared to this, Mickey on immigration is fresh.

Frum's position was a bit more nuanced than that. He thinks Obama gives great speeches in the 19th century sense; that is, they are effective in open-air, political rally settings. But in the modern age of mass communication, speeches are going to be presented by media outlets in snippets and soundbites, and Obama's speeches aren't very effective when truncated.

While I personally liked Obama's speech on race (though strangely, I found it better when I read the text than when I heard Obama deliver it), I agree with Frum that it wasn't very effective. Based on the voting patterns in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, it seemed to do little to assuage concerns that white working class voters have about him. It was the concerns of those voters that Obama was attempting to mollify when he delivered the Philadelphia speech. If a speech fails to convince its target audience, how can it be deemed effective?

[Big Wayne]

Originally Posted by Whatfur

And OF COURSE its because of the media age...or should I say the NEGATIVE LEFT WING media age. We get months and months of coverage followed by months more of left wing talking points about a handfull of soldiers at ABU GRAIB. We get months and months of coverage including Murtha slandering a handful of Marines about Haditha based on a BS Time Magazine speculation...and when they are pretty much all cleared of all charges, we get almost nothing!!!

... the MSM and the International media is too consumed with BDS, blame America first or anti-americanism that they cannot bear the thought of anything good going on in Iraq...so they dwell on anything gutteral as they try to head off any positive notions and positive progress.

Yeah, the BDS-infected, anti-American liberal media.

Like "Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who is scathing in his assessment that the Bush administration 'led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions.'"

[Big Wayne]

First of all, it's a given that talking to Whatfur is a fruitless exercise. We're half way through 2008, and the boy is still a fervent Bush loyalist. This shows total and absolute immunity to reality. There's nothing anyone here will ever say to get through to him. Some people (about 27%) are just impervious to reason.

Originally Posted by Whatfur

Do you deny the this pounding coupled with the negativism of Democrat leaders has not empowered the enemy

Empowered the enemy? LOL! What, like every time a Democrat says something bad about Bush, the bad guys get a power-up and do 25% more damage in combat? Or they develop anti-missile skin so they can survive Apache fire? Please explain the process by which a free press "empowers" the enemy.

Originally Posted by Whatfur

frustrated the troops

Frustrated the troops? Why? Do the troops feel entitled to be lied to about the disaster in Iraq? The troops are facing enemy fire and IEDs and you think they wilt because we don't limit their media exposure to fairy tales and happy talk? You want to treat them like children. They're not children.

By the way, why the hell aren't you in Iraq? I hear the Army needs infantry.

You must just be too frustrated to serve, eh? I know, it's been very hard for you war advocates, with the big mean media and Democrats harshing on your war buzz.

Originally Posted by Whatfur

and confused Iraqi's

Yeah, that's right. The Iraqis are judging the situation by what they hear on American television!

Originally Posted by Whatfur

And if you have the ability to get your minds around these questions then ask yourself where we might be if instead of being painted as occupiers making human pyrmids of naked Iraqi's we were painted as liberators and Democratic enablers? To head you off at the pass...Do not get hung up on the denial here of whether we are liberators or enablers... but I am just looking to see if you think that if all our leaders and the media pounded on the positives instead of the negatives whether that would have made any difference.

Made any difference?

What kind of difference are you talking about? I thought everything in Iraq was going swimmingly. Isn't that your position? Or do you actually admit the war has been a mess, only so that you can blame it on the media?

[Incompetence Dodger]

Originally Posted by Thus Spoke Elvis

While I personally liked Obama's speech on race (though strangely, I found it better when I read the text than when I heard Obama deliver it), I agree with Frum that it wasn't very effective. Based on the voting patterns in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, it seemed to do little to assuage concerns that white working class voters have about him. It was the concerns of those voters that Obama was attempting to mollify when he delivered the Philadelphia speech. If a speech fails to convince its target audience, how can it be deemed effective?

Well, for one, the Gettysburg Address was famously a flop initially (disclaimer: as much as I liked Obama's speech on race, and as much as I think it genuinely marks a turning point, I am NOT making a 1:1 equivalence between it and the Gettysburg Address; let's not get stuck on stupid, people).

I was fascinated by Cherny's point that Obama went through that speech and de-soundbited it. Very astute, both in terms of political self-defense, frustrating those who would use turn those soundbites against him (Exhibit A here), and as part of what seems to be his campaign to tone down the national pie-fight and get liberals and conservatives that are willing to engage each other in good faith to do so on a more productive level.

In that vein, Elvis, I'd like to echo what Brendan said the other day about wishing there were more conservatives like you.

[bjkeefe]

Elvis:

This conflates the speech writer with the speech deliverer.

A fair point. Of course, I cannot completely agree on the effectiveness of Bush's speeches, since they certainly failed to win me over. I do grant that he (and his words, via Frum, et al) seemed to get a good reaction from a lot of people at the time, but I wonder how much of a challenge it would be for anyone to have rallied the American public by talking tough after we were attacked.

While I personally liked Obama's speech on race (though strangely, I found it better when I read the text than when I heard Obama deliver it), I agree with Frum that it wasn't very effective.

I think you and Frum make a mistake in evaluating the speech's effectiveness -- it sounds to me that you're both saying that it failed to be a magic bullet. There was no way he was going to alleviate everyone's concerns, no matter what he said. The speech did work for a lot of people -- if you look back at the commentary in the days following, you'll find all sorts of glowing reactions. I'd also say that it's better to consider the speech as a step in the right direction to addressing an enormously complex issue, rather than as a question of did it work or did it not.

Another thought: Purely politically, one measure of its effectiveness might be this: The Wright controversy did not cost Obama the nomination, when many people felt it likely that it would.

[piscivorous]

Originally Posted by Big Wayne

Yeah, the BDS-infected, anti-American liberal media.

Like "Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who is scathing in his assessment that the Bush administration 'led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions.'"

Oh you mean the General Sanchez that was in charge of Iraq when the situation over there was deteriorating. That General Sanchez right? I wonder if his assessment that it was someone else’s fault, even though he was the guy primarily responsible for Iraq at the time, might be just a little self serving.

[Big Wayne]

Originally Posted by piscivorous

Oh you mean the General Sanchez that was in charge of Iraq when the situation over there was deteriorating. That General Sanchez right? I wonder if his assessment that it was someone else’s fault, even though he was the guy primarily responsible for Iraq at the time, might be just a little self serving.

I'm glad you are willing to admit there have been problems with the war effort, even if you feel the need to blame the troops, instead of the commander in chief.

[piscivorous]

Aren't you cute. You must have been taking lessons from bjkeefe at misconstruing a comment instead of addressing it. As a Matter of fact since General Sanchez was one of the primary sources that the CIC was basing his decision on should rightly be noted.

Big Wayne

I posed these questions in a serious vain. You have shown to either not be very "big" (once again), or you have shown an inability to actually understand the questions or both. I am not here to draw stick people for you.

[Thus Spoke Elvis]

Originally Posted by Incompetence Dodger

Well, for one, the Gettysburg Address was famously a flop initially (disclaimer: as much as I liked Obama's speech on race, and as much as I think it genuinely marks a turning point, I am NOT making a 1:1 equivalence between it and the Gettysburg Address; let's not get stuck on stupid, people).

True enough, and I don't mean to suggest that immediate effectiveness is the only measure by which to judge a speech. In time, speeches that didn't seem so impressive may come to be seen as transcendent. But unlike the Gettysburg Address, I don't think Obama's speech will stand the test of time -- the context and (yes) much of its content were too temporal in nature. And because of that, I'm comfortable judging the speech first and foremost on its effectiveness upon the intended audience.

In that vein, Elvis, I'd like to echo what Brendan said the other day about wishing there were more conservatives like you.

Thanks...I think.

[Thus Spoke Elvis]

Originally Posted by bjkeefe

Elvis:
I do grant that he (and his words, via Frum, et al) seemed to get a good reaction from a lot of people at the time, but I wonder how much of a challenge it would be for anyone to have rallied the American public by talking tough after we were attacked.

There's naturally going to be some rallying around the flag/President at a time like 9/11, but Bush's address to Congress was a great speech. He talked tough beginning on the day of the attack, but before that address, he didn't inspire nearly the degree of confidence.

I think you and Frum make a mistake in evaluating the speech's effectiveness -- it sounds to me that you're both saying that it failed to be a magic bullet. There was no way he was going to alleviate everyone's concerns, no matter what he said. The speech did work for a lot of people -- if you look back at the commentary in the days following, you'll find all sorts of glowing reactions.

It's true that the speech worked for a lot of media types, but they were not the target audience, and their opinion was much less meaningful in this instance than that of white working class voters. While I don't think it was possible for Obama to deliver a speech that would completely win over this group, I do think that a shorter, more direct speech that more forcefully denounced Wright would have been more effective.

Another thought: Purely politically, one measure of its effectiveness might be this: The Wright controversy did not cost Obama the nomination, when many people felt it likely that it would.

I can't say whether the damage done by Wright was overblown or not. Some have argued that it already crested by the time of Obama's speech. But there is still a chance that the Wright controversy and its lingering aftermath will cost Obama the general election in a year when Democrats should be guaranteed the presidency.

[bkjazfan]

Maybe Frum was in a bad mood today. He seemed to be reaching on some of his criticisms of obama and the Democratic Party.

He said Obama has little international experience which to the best of my knowledge is true (no, living in Indonesnia as a child does not count). In the modern era what president has? Reagan, Clinton, or GW Bush - I don't think so. In my voting years most have not.

John

[arg11]

The thing that Frum is conveniently eliding in his discussion of the race speech is that Obama did answer this question numerous times in interviews and debates, but nobody accepted his answer. So he gave the race speech in order to contextualize the entire debate. Moreover, Frum's referring to Wright as "an evil man saying evil things" is typical right-wing bullshit. Let's quote Falwell a couple of times: "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us what we probably deserve." "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this [i.e. 9/11] happen.'" "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" Compared to Falwell, Wright is a moderate, but would Frum call Falwell an "evil man saying evil things"? I doubt it. Instead, he would tell me: "That's not the issue here. The issue is that Barack Obama has this demagogue pastor. Does McCain have a demagogue pastor?" Answer: Yes, Rod Parsley, who believes that America has a God-given mission to destroy Islam.

[bkjazfan]

arg 11,

Barak Obama went to Jeremiah's Wright's church for 20 years. The reverend and this Father Phlegar engaged in "hate speech" pure and simple. If that's moderate what is radical?

John

[bjkeefe]

John:

Barak Obama went to Jeremiah's Wright's church for 20 years. The reverend and this Father Phlegar engaged in "hate speech" pure and simple. If that's moderate what is radical?

Are you of the opinion that that's all Wright spoke of?

Probably also worth noting that Pfleger wasn't a member of Obama's church, just an occasional guest speaker.

[piscivorous]

I should probably go and link to some obscure publication now that shows the links between Senator Obama and the Pastor Pfleger, and various grants to the good Pastorr's organizations and affiliates, but they would be ancient history and of little interest to you so I wont bother. Of sorry I already did that here

[Big Wayne]

Originally Posted by piscivorous

Aren't you cute. You must have been taking lessons from bjkeefe at misconstruing a comment instead of addressing it. As a Matter of fact since General Sanchez was one of the primary sources that the CIC was basing his decision on should rightly be noted.

Hey, I'm just happy to discover that you're not mindlessly claiming that the war has been a smash success since day one, as your kind usually does, even if you do have to blame LT. GEN. Sanchez while excusing Bush.

[bjkeefe]

pisc:

Isn't the air in your cocoon getting a little stale? From what's wafting out of it, I'd sure say so.

[piscivorous]

Once again your answer is innuendo instead of reasoned counter argument.

[piscivorous]

A good primmer about another area of the world where ewe still have troops enforcing a tentative peace. A Dark Corner of Europe, Part I It is rather long but there are some nice pictures and I found it interesting.

[Big Wayne]

Originally Posted by piscivorous

A good primmer about another area of the world where ewe still have troops enforcing a tentative peace. A Dark Corner of Europe, Part I It is rather long but there are some nice pictures and I found it interesting.

Thanks for the link. The author says,

Originally Posted by Michael J. Totten

Serbia did not belong to the Western half of the Roman Empire with Rome as its capital. It belonged, instead, to the Eastern half of the empire whose capital is now Istanbul.

This was very educational for me. I was previously unaware that the Roman Empire still existed. Shows how little I know!

We should ask them if they want to join the coalition of the willing.

[bjkeefe]

Originally Posted by piscivorous

Once again your answer is innuendo instead of reasoned counter argument.

There is no reasoning with you, Pisc, not on the subject of Obama.

And you still have yet to answer my question: Is your obsession with reading, and linking to, anti-Obama screeds an example of being in a cocoon or not?

[osmium]

way to go, david frum. there are some people, who if they're against you, you must have done something right.

[piscivorous]

Can't speak to the authors time discontinuity there but I imagine it has some thing to do with the historical name(s) for Istanbul, historically Byzantium or Constantinople, and it's having been renamed after the conquest of by the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s. I would speculate however that as Mr Totem does not have much of a staff, to proof read his postings, it would not surprise me that an error like this might occur.